THIS would not be slipt

Old guise must be kept.

Good huswives, whom God hath enriched enough,
Forget not the feasts, that belong to the plough:
The meaning is only to joy and be glad,
For comfort, with labour, is fit to be had.

Plough Monday.*

Plough Monday, next after that Twelfthtide is past, Bids out with the plough, the worst husband is last, If ploughman get hatchet, or whip to the screen, Maids loseth their cock, if no water be seen,

Shrovetide.t

At Shrovetide to shroving, go thresh the fat hen, If blindfold can kill her, then give it thy men. Maids, fritters and pancakes enow see ye make, Let slut have one pancake, for company sake.

Plough Monday was to remind the cultivators of the earth of their proper business; and a spring was given to the activity of domestics, by some peculiar observances. The men and maid servants strove to outrie each other in early rising, on Plough Monday. If the ploughman could get any of the implements of his vocation by the fireside, before the maid could put on her kettle, she forfeited her shrovetide cock. The evening concluded with a good sapper.

The custom alluded to in this stanza is now probably quite obsolete. I describe it on the authority of Hilman, who seems to have witnessed its celebration. "The hen is hung at a fellow's back, who has also some horse bells about him; the rest of the fellows are blinded, and have boughs in their hands, with which they chase this fellow and his hen about some large court or small enclosure. The fellow with his hen and bells shifting as well as he can, they follow the sound, and sometimes hit him and his hen; other times, if he can get behind one of them, they thresh one another well favouredly; but the jest is, the maids are to blind the fellows, which they do with their aprons, and the cunning baggages will endear their sweethearts with a peeping-hole, whilst the others look out as sharp to hinder it. After this, the hen is boiled with bacon; and a store of pancakes and fritters are made. She that is noted for lying a-bed long, or any other miscarriage, hath the first pancake presented to her, which most commonly fall to the dog's share at last, for no one will own it their due."

Sheep-Shearing.

Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corn,
Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorn,
Atsheep-shearing, neighbours none other thing crave,
But good cheer and welcome, like neighbours to have.
The Wake-Day.‡

Fill oven with flawns, Jenny, pass not for sleep,
To-morrow, thy father his wake-day will keep.
Then every wanton may dance at her will,
Both Tomkin with Tomlin, and Jenkin with Gill.
Harvest-Home.*

For all this good feasting, yet art thou not loose,
Till ploughman thou givest his harvest-home goose.
Though goose go in stubble, I pass not for that,
Let goose have a goose, be she lean, be she fat.

Seed-Cake.

Wife, some time this week, if the weather hold clear,
An end of wheat sowing we make for this year:
Remember thou therefore, though I do it not,
The seed-cake, the pasties, and furmenty pot.
Twice a-week Roast.

Good plowmen, look weekly, of custom and right,
For roast meat on Sundays, and Thursdays at night.
Thus doing and keeping such custom and guise,
They call thee good huswife,-they love thee likewise.

On the night preceding the day of the dedication of the parish church, which is always identified with some saint in the Romish calendar at least, the young parishioners used to watch in the church till morning, and to feast the next day. This practice was likely to lead to irregularities, and was properly changed to waking at the oven, in each particular house.

It appears that a goose used formerly to be given, at harvesthome, to those who had not overturned a load of corn, in carrying. during harvest.

SUFFOLK CHEESE:

BY ROBERT BLOOMFIELD.

The cows of Suffolk have long been celebrated for the abundance of their milk, which, considering their size, and the quantity of food, far exceeds the produce of any other race in the island. Though the peculiar breed of this county is spread all over it, yet a tract of twenty miles by twelve is more especially the seat of the Dairies. This space is comprehended within a line drawn from the parish of Coddenham to Ashbocking, Otley, Charsfield, Letheringham, Hacheston, Parham, Framlingham, Cransford, Brusyard, Badingham, Sibton, Heveningham, Cookley, Linstead, Metfield, Wethersdale, Fressingfield, Wingfield, Hoxne, Brome, Thrandeston, Gislingham, Finningham, Westhorp, Wyverston, Gipping, Stonham, Creeting, and again to Coddenham.

The breed is universally polled; and the size small, few rising, when fattened, to above 50 stone at 14lb. each. The characteristics of this breed are, a clean throat, with little dew lap; a thin, clean snake head; thin legs; a very large carcase; a rib tolerably springing from the centre of the back, but with a heavy belly; back-bone ridged; chine, thin and hollow; loin narrow; udder large, loose, and creased when empty; milk-veins remarkably large, and rising in knotted puffs to the eye; a general habit of leanness; hip-bones high and ill covered; and scarcely any part of the carcase so formed and covered as to please the eye accustomed to fat beasts of the finer breeds. The best milkers are in general red, brindled, or of a yellowish cream colour. The quantity of milk yielded by one of

these cows is from five to eight gallons a day. When the quantity of milk, in any breed, is very great, that of butter is rarely equal. It is thus in Suffolk; the quantity of milk is more extraordinary than that of butter. The average of all the dairies, in the district, may be estimated at three firkins; and three-fourths of a whey of cheese per cow, clear to the factor's hands, after supplying the consump▪ tion of the family. The quantity of butter computed to be sent from Suffolk to London annually is about 40,000 firkins.

The Suffolk butter is much esteemed; but alas! those, who make good butter, must, of course, make bad cheese; and therefore the generality of Suffolk cheese is well known to be as remarkably bad, as the butter is excellent. But in those districts, where little or no butter is churned, as good cheese is made as any in the kingdom, being little, if at all, inferior to that of Stilton.

UNRIVALL'D stands thy country cheese, O Giles;
Whose very name alone engenders smiles;
Whose fame abroad by every tongue is spoke,
The well-known butt of many a flinty joke,*
That pass like current coin the nation through;
And, ah! experience proves the satire true.
Provision's grave, thou ever craving mart,
Dependant, huge metropolis! where art

Her pouring thousands stows in breathless rooms, Midst pois'nous smokes and steams, and rattling looms;

Hu ger will break through stone-walls, or any thing, except Suffolk cheese, says Ray.

Suffolk cheese, from its poverty, says Grose, is frequently the subject of much humour. It is by some represented as only fit for making wheels for wheelbarrows; and a story is told, that a parcel of Suffolk cheese being packed up in an iron chest, and put on board a ship bound to the East Indies, the rats, allured by the scent, eat through the chest, but could not penetrate the cheese.

B B

Where grandeur revels in unbounded stores;
Restraint, a slighted stranger at their doors;
Thou, like a whirlpool, drain'st the countries round,
Till London market, London price, resound
Through every town, round every passing load,
And dairy produce throngs the Eastern road :
Delicious veal, and butter, every hour,

From Essex lowlands, and the banks of Stour;
And further far, where numerous herds repose,
From Orwell's brink, from Waveney, or Ouse.
Hence Suffolk dairy-wives run mad for cream,
And leave their milk* with nothing but its name;
Its name derision and reproach pursue,

And strangers tell of "three times skimm'd skyblue."

To cheese converted, what can be its boast?
What, but the common virtues of a post!
If drought o'ertake it faster than the knife,
Most fair it bids for stubborn length of life,
And, like the oaken shelf whereon 'tis laid,
Mocks the weak efforts of the bending blade;
Or in the hog-trough rests in perfect spite,
Too big to swallow, and too hard to bite.
Inglorious victory! Ye Cheshire meads,
Or Severn's flowry dales, where plenty treads,
Was
your rich milk to suffer wrongs like these,
Farewell your pride! farewell renowned cheese!
The skimmer dread, whose ravages alone
Thus turns the meads sweet nectar into stone.

Fuller in his Proverbs has the following remarks; Suffolk milk.-This was one of the staple commodities of the Land of Canaan, and certainly most wholesome for man's food, because of God's own choosing for his own people. No county in England affords better and sweeter of the kind, lying opposite to Holland, in the Nether. lands, where is the best dairy in Christendom.